To the Graduating Class of 2024, Just look at you. You’ve achieved your goal of earning a K-12 education or perhaps a college degree. You’re like broncos ready to bust the gate to head out to your future.

I hope that when you look in the mirror every morning as you prepare for the next step in your young adult life that you will see the generations of your family in your face and make a conscious decision to make them proud. But most importantly, I want you to look into your eyes and tell yourself you are worthy of all things good and go make decisions that will make yourself proud.

You’re going to receive a lot of advice in the next few days. Here are some certainties or truths that may you might find valuable in the coming years: Your mind is where you live. Your happiness depends on you. Everyday you will make that decision. Your mindset is not to be the responsibility of your friends or who you may be dating.

Don’t confuse rank and leadership. Often those that sit at the highest levels in organizations or the workplace have authority, but that doesn’t make them great leaders. They tell people what to do, but that doesn’t mean that people would follow them. Leaders create environments where people can work at their natural best. You have inside you to be someone that others respect.

The songs you love now and during your high school years will be the soundtrack of your life and probably your favorite playlist.

Remember that you’re nobody’s priority if you are not your own priority.

Nobody gets a pass when it comes to pain and suffering. The world is full of people walking around with holes in their hearts looking for something or someone to plug those holes in order to make them feel whole. Make sure that you aren’t that patch or band-aid when you enter a relationship and you are loved for being you.

And on that note . . . Don’t choose who you love solely on how a person looks. Love them for the way they look at you and how they make you feel when you’re around them. Infatuation and love can be confusing at any age. Attraction is a powerful chemical in our brains. Beauty fades with time. Any relationship based on physical attributes becomes like a stock that has been held too long; it will go down, and with it; the relationship.

You’re young and you probably won’t know this until much later, but we only have so much time to make an impact on the world. Let go of the things or people that drag you down or as we say in the South, “Cut bait”. Ditch anything that doesn’t serve you, your goals or that dulls your shine.

You are living your one life. Live it like a third grader hitting the playground door, stripping off your coat in mid-run, with the wind blowing your hair back as you race outside for recess.

Despite any excuses you may give for making bad decisions, those choices, along with any that you make everyday, will reveal your character to the world. You can be a gifted person in any area of life and your choices will spotlight your integrity far more than your abilities.

Gallantry doesn’t require superhero status. The real saints of the world are ordinary people who demonstrate decency in times of turmoil and trouble.

Do not allow anyone to set your ceiling, place you in a box, or pin a label on you. Think about all the people who have entered any sports draft. Many, many late draft picks have gone on to make a major impact in sports. Which leads me to say this: Let people underestimate you.

About two years ago, Brock Purdy was the 262nd final pick of the 2022 NFL Draft by the 49ers and considered irrelevant. In 2024, he was a quarterback playing in Super Bowl LVIII.

In the 1999, 399 other players were selected before the St. Louis Cardinals finally took a chance on Albert Pujols as the 18th pick of the 13th round.

Which steers me to point out another reality: Timing is everything and as trite as it might sound, when one door closes another one opens. Had Pujols been selected by any other team in the first round, who knows if his career would have been as illustrious as it turned out to be after having to prove himself. Please view every challenge is an opportunity.

Do YOUR thing to the best of your ability. As long as you know your worth, talent, intelligence and you do the work, your time will come. And when doors close, and they will close; relationships will end, you won’t land a job you wanted or perhaps you’re let go from a position; know that better things do come along if you’re open to possibilities.

The best thing when you’re feeling sad is to learn something. It never fails you. No matter what you endure in your lifetime, the mind will never be betrayed by learning and there is a plethora of things to learn in this vast world.

People who talk more than they listen are not the smartest people in the room.

A person who can regulate their emotions will lead a more peaceful life. If you can’t control your feelings, you become triggered by events and people.

There is nothing more gorgeous than a person who possesses moral beauty.

Your parents are the only people on this Earth that want you to be and do better than they have done. No one will have your back like them and no one will be as happy for your successes. Cherish them. When you lose them, you will have lost the meaning of what it is to love unconditionally.

One thing that people don’t tell you when you’re young is that you will be a different person in each phase of your life, at each age. Life experiences, age, knowledge, heart break and love change us all. When you meet your classmates again years down the road at your reunions you will be a different person. They will be too. What will forever bind you is your shared memories and what you have experienced together in the last four years.

Graduates, the world is unpredictable, chaotic and a constantly changing place. You will spend the first half of your life trying to figure it all out. Your generation will be responsible for leading the world in the next few years. I would ask that you rely on trustworthy news outlets and newspapers to guide your political views. Remember everything you ever learned about critical thinking, Ad Hominem, bias and common sense when dealing with politics.

So, young’uns, the world is yours for the taking. People have a tendency to mourn avenues and decisions they would like to have made differently and the lives they didn’t lead when they begin to hit mid-life. Regret is a waste of time. We tend to presume the choices we didn’t make would have been better, but we have no way of knowing that.

Right now, there is a kaleidoscope of lives that you could choose to lead. Choose what’s best for you. Choose happiness. It all depends on you.

Pam Lowe is the editor of the Clay County Courier in Corning, Arkansas. Readers may contact Pam at plowe@cherryroad. com